Miasmas and Disease: Public Health and the Environment in the Pre-Industrial Age

by Carlo M. Cipolla, Elizabeth Potter (Translation)

In his new book the renowned historian Carlo Cipolla explores the themes of health, medicine and the origins of infectious disease in pre-industrial Italy. Using the papers of the Magistrato alla Sanita, the Florence Health Magistracy, covering the first thirty years of the seventeenth century, he recreates the ecological and medical environment of the Florentine countryside. As few historians can, he lets the drama unfold, and allows the participants to speak for themselves in their own vivid language.
The book opens with an analysis of the Sanitation Office in Florence, the Uffia de Sanita, of its regional inspectors and their grasp of epidemiological principles. It reveals the transformation of the Office from a temporary administrative body into a permanent institution with preventative aims. And it documents, through their own verbatim accounts, the endeavours of intelligent and motivated doctors and medical inspectors to combat disease within a superstitious culture and an environment of dirt.
The book shows how tantalisingly close was contemporary medical practice, focussed on the physical elements, humours and pungent exhalations, to the real sources of infection--dirt, rubbish and sanitary effluents. Cipolla neither patronises nor romanticises the past and its inhabitants. He shows how, despite limitations in knowledge, the painful process of seventeenth-century discovery provided the basis of modern medical insight.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Carlo M. Cipolla (August 15, 1922 – September 5, 2000) was an Italian economic historian. He was born in Pavia, where he got his academic degree in 1944.
As a young man, Cipolla wanted to teach history and philosophy in an Italian high school, and therefore enrolled at the political science faculty at Pavia University. Whilst a student there, thanks to professor Franco Borlandi, a specialist in Medieval economic history, he discovered his passion for economic history. Subsequently he studied at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics.

Cipolla obtained his first teaching post in economic history in Catania at the age of 27. This was to be the first stop in a long academic career in Italy (Venice, Turin, Pavia, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Fiesole) and abroad. In 1953 Cipolla left for the United States as a Fulbright fellow and in 1957 became a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Two years later he obtained a full professorship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M....

Reviews

[pierlapo quimby · Rating 4 out of 5]

La conoscenza del minuscolo evento storico, dell'infinitesimale ma mai irrilevante dato statistico, la ricerca microspecialistica, l'avvincente divulgazione di tutto questo, che si tratti della diffusione di miasmi e umori nel Granducato d Toscana o di altre piccolezze, riusciranno a salvarci dall'imbarbarimento?

[Annalisa Marini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sintetico e affascinante nelle sue disgustose descrizioni. L'ultima frase del libro riporta esattamente il pensiero che ho avuto durante la breve lettura ma non voglio spoilerare.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Breve saggio che trova il suo unico limite proprio nell'eccessiva stringatezza e poverta' di pagine. E' pur vero che il focus e' ristretto all'ambito fiorentino, ma una piu' ampia trattazione avrebbe dato maggior respiro (quanto mai opportunamente visto l'argomento) al saggio, peraltro molto interessante, togliendo ogni dubbio circa il vago sentore di libretto buttato in pista tanto per fare numero.

[Claudio Zappador · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breve saggio di storia della medicina sul tema della gestione e prevenzione delle malattie infettive nel seicento, fondata su convinzioni e superstizioni che di scientifico avevano ben poco. L’ignoranza scientifica tra i medici era ahimè dilagante, l’esistenza dei microbi era sconosciuta, non esistevano gli accertamenti di laboratorio e la medicina era empirica. La trattazione del tema, ben documentata, meritava ulteriori livelli di approfondimento e dettaglio visto il fascino dell’argomento trattato. Tuttavia, mi piace pensare che l’autore abbia volutamente scelto il formato della narrazione breve, forse per invogliarne la lettura da parte dei lettori pigri e dare un assaggio sull’argomento. Personalmente mi è piaciuto tantissimo e mi ha dato ulteriori spunti di lettura.